Repentance and Atonement
“Turn back, rebellious sons, said the LORD, for I have claimed possession of you, and have taken you . . .” Jeremiah 3:14a Robert Alter
Turn back – What does it take to achieve forgiveness and atonement? Jeremiah says, “Repent and turn back.” That’s what it takes. But Leviticus 16:30 says that Yom Kippur brings atonement. And Isaiah 22:14 says iniquity will never be removed until you die. Finally, Psalm 89:33 suggests that suffering brings atonement. The rabbis asked, “How do we reconcile these ideas?”
“When a person is guilty of a sin of omission and repents, he is immediately forgiven. When a person is guilty of a sin of commission, repentance cannot expiate it. Judgment will be suspended until Yom Kippur arrives and atonement is granted. When a person commits a transgression that is a capital offense, whether in a heavenly or in an earthy court, repentance cannot postpone the punishment, nor can Yom Kippur bring pardon. However, repentance and Yom Kippur together qualify for half a pardon. The other half is achieved through chastisements of suffering. When a person is guilty, by his actions, of the desecration and profanation of God’s name, neither repentance, nor Yom Kippur, nor suffering can cleanse him of his guilt. Repentance and Yom Kippur postpone the punishment, and suffering followed by death complete the atonement. Rabbi Judah the Patriarch said, ‘I might have thought that the day of death does not bring atonement, but when Scripture says, “When I have opened your graves and lifted you out of your graves” (Ezekiel 37:13), I realized that death does bring absolution.’”[1]
Following the often-quoted instruction of the rabbis, “Repent one minute before your death,” might not be enough after all. If you’ve sinned unintentionally (and you later discover your transgression), then repentance will do the trick. But for most of us, unintentional sins aren’t the issue. We’ve sinned deliberately, hopefully not in the latter two cases. According to the rabbinic sages, this means our judgment is postponed until Yom Kippur. That could be a long wait, a long time in the in-between state of repentant but not yet forgiven. Is it any wonder that Yom Kippur is so important in the Jewish world? For all those things we did that we knew were offenses, Yom Kippur finally brings relief. We can start again, and hopefully not make the same mistakes.
But capital crimes or blasphemy, oh my, that’s another story! Death is the atonement. Somehow all that changed when Christianity adopted the view that the death of the Messiah erased all our sins. No rabbinic Jew could have imagined such a thing. And that raises an important question for us: What was accomplished in the death of the Messiah? The Jewish perspective is a long way from Augustine and Luther. The Jewish perspective is much more nuanced, much more severe. There is no “Jesus forgives my sins, past, present, and future.” There is still a price to pay, sometimes a very high price (from our point of view). Perhaps we need to rethink these consequences in order to appreciate the severity of our choices.
Topical Index: atonement, forgiveness, repentance, Leviticus 16:30, Isaiah 22:14, Psalm 89:32, Ezekiel 37:13, Jeremiah 3:1
[1] Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 183.
What was accomplished in the death of the Messiah?
I don’t think anything in and of itself was accomplished other than the fact that it was part of his life-long process leading to the resurrection and proof that life everlasting was a human reality. Seeing is believing!
The transition that occurred with Yeshua’s first century parousia was the end of the Old Creation (a religious and political historical order), and the appointment of of a radical new creation, in which neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything— rather a new rule through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to those who belong to His household of faith, and those who are His to the world.
In this context, the Jewish perspective is no longer center stage; rather, Yeshua, the risen Christ’s perspective is— and he shares the vantage of the Majesty on high, being seated at His right hand, awaiting the word of his Father affirming the day and hour of the conjoining of the throne in the highest heavens with “the land,” and the certain and righteous/just judgement of the quick and the dead.
No, there is no “Jesus forgives my sins, past, present, and future.” But there is an atonement of death that brings absolution— a death of crucifixion!
“But as for me, may it never be that I boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And all those who follow this rule, peace and mercy be on them and on the Israel of God.” (Galatians 6:14-16)